Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 75 | Hipster Jesus

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

A recent tweet by Pastor Judah Smith said Jesus isn't "your judge." But what does the Bible have to say about that? We dive into the trendy mischaracterizations of Jesus and why they're damning. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone is having a great week so far. This is episode 75 of Relatable, 75. That's crazy. I should probably do something big for the 100th episode. If you have any ideas of how I should celebrate that or just kind of like say thank you to you guys for listening to my rantings for the past almost 100 episodes, then let me know. So today we're going to talk about hipster Jesus. And I will explain exactly what that means and why it's important. How I got the idea for this subject, even though I've been calling hipster Jesus,

hipster Jesus for a long time now, is one of you guys sit me this idea. And that's honestly how I get a lot of my content for my podcast is that you guys tell me what you want to hear about or you ask me, have I seen this. Sometimes I have, sometimes I haven't. I formulate my thoughts. I try to make it into a kind of a bigger subject

so I can talk about it for 30 minutes and actually be analytical and informative. So today we're going to talk about this idea of hipster Jesus, which is this non-Jesus, but that has been created from parts of our culture as well as parts of the biblical Jesus to make this like idealized guy who's just our buddy. And the idea started with this tweet that was sent me from Judas Smith, who leads a church in Seattle. He's kind of part of the Hillsong posse.

He's really a celebrity pastor. He was named by vice as one of the biggest. celebrity Christian influencers out there. He tweeted this. Jesus is not your accuser. He's not your prosecutor. He's not your judge. He's your friend and your rescuer.

Get to know him for yourself and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out. Okay. So let's go through this tweet really fast. Not your accuser. Check. Revelation 1220 says that Satan is your accuser. Not your prosecutor. Check.

Isaiah 1920 says that Jesus is your defender. He is not your judge. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Okay. We'll get back to that. He is your friend. Check. If you are a Christian, John 15, 13, 13 through 15, he is your rescuer. Check, two, or two Corinthians, like Donald Trump, 2 Timothy 418. Okay. So he is not our accuser. He is not our prosecutor. He is our friend as Christians. He is our cure. Amen. But wait, but wait. We had an uh-oh in there. Judah said that he is not our judge. Well, okay. What does the Bible have to say about that? That should always be the question that we ask ourselves, no matter who we are listening to when it comes to any kind of teaching on Christianity. When you are listening to me talk about Christianity or really anything, you should ask yourself, what does the Bible have to say about that? Do not take my word for it. Read your Bible. that is my question when I read this because you can read it and it just kind of sounds good.

Okay. Yeah. He is my defender. He is not my accuser. He's not my prosecutor. Yes, he is my friend. He loves me. I will get to know him for myself and I'll let the goodness of God change me from the

inside out. That sounds awesome. That is who Jesus is. But if we're not careful and if we don't weigh what a pastor like this says against the word of God, then we are going to be deceived. And I think in kind of a big way, even though he probably didn't mean. it in kind of some kind of profound untheological way, he probably just said it. But he's wrong because here's what the Bible says about Jesus being our judge. John 522, for the father judges no one,

but has given all judgment to the son. Second Timothy 4.1, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead. Revelation 1920. Then I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. That is Jesus and a righteousness, he judges and makes war. So he actually is our judge. He is the judge. He is the only righteous judge that exists, only one worthy of judging the deep hearts of men and women.

I don't want to single out Judah Smith because he's certainly not the only one that kind of makes this kind of characterization and assessment of Jesus. This misidentifying of Jesus is truly endemic in our generation and in our society. like I said, Judas Smith has become a very popular speaker and popular pastor because he hangs out with a lot of famous people and he's a good communicator. But unfortunately, his identification of Jesus, whether it is deliberate or is not, is symbolic of what a lot of young people in particular think about Jesus and who he is. That is simply not biblical. We tend to see Jesus as those of us who are kind of young and who are in this, cool Christian movement, which I am not, but just young people who are, they tend to see Jesus

as the affirmer of who we are, affirmer of whoever we want to be. He is the guy who checks off all of our dreams and says, go for it. Girl, you should do that. You should pursue that ambition. He's the guy who makes us feel better about ourselves when we're feeling insecure. He is who I call hipster Jesus. So this hipster Jesus has a really awesome beard. Like he's socially liberal, maybe a little bit fiscally conservative, but I don't know. He kind of likes the whole socialism thing too. He runs marathons. He's like super into craft beer.

He's really into using words like intentional and doing life together. And he makes, you know, a pilgrimage to Bethel Church every year. Hipster Jesus is totally non-judgmental, man. He's like totally not judgmental. He's just going to tell you, you do you. He laughs at all of your jokes. He is just there to support you when you, need him. Like if you want to hang out with him, that's cool. If you don't, man, like, that's cool, too.

He is pro open borders. He's anti-gun, anti-just like yucky religion stuff. Like no rules, man. He's just like, chill. He's just like, be cool, dude. Just like, you know, do what you want. Peace, love, happiness. Yes, that is hipster Jesus. He just wants you to be yourself. He just thinks that anyone who tells you to be anyone else besides who you truly feel that you are is just a mean bigot who needs to be cut out of your life because they are toxic. He wants you to find yourself. He wants you to follow your heart. Hipsur Jesus thinks that the only thing that is wrong is saying that something is wrong. You got me.

He is super into social justice. He volunteers at the SPCA definitely vegan, like super, super vegan. and girl, he just thinks you are awesome. He is your biggest fan. He is your number one cheerleader, and he just wants you to be happy. He wants to affirm all those feelings that you have. You want to yell at God.

You want to shake your fist at God. You want to tell him that he's not good. Well, Jesus is going to be right there with you, patting you on the back. This is who people today, people on the left and people who are ignorant, but I repeat myself, see Jesus as. And even conservatives, actually, they believe a variation of this.

Of course, I do not believe the conservatives are immune from idolatry or viewing Jesus in the wrong way. It's just a little bit different. They tend to people who are more conservative, they're idolizing a wrong Jesus, a false Jesus. They believe that Jesus exists to make you rich to help you get that next promotion. He is here to help you pursue your dreams. That is prosperity Jesus, Joel Osteen Jesus, hipster Jesus and prosperity Jesus. and prosperity Jesus are two sides of the same blasphemous coin.

A hipster Jesus is there to make you feel better about yourself through constant affirmation. Prosperity Jesus is here to make you feel better about yourself through financial blessings, through health blessings, through the health and wealth gospel. Well, there are three problems with hipster Jesus and prosperity Jesus. Today we're focusing on hipster Jesus, but there's three problems with them. Number one, they don't exist. So there are nowhere to be found in the Bible, nowhere to be found in history. They are figments of our imagination.

And the second problem is because hipster Jesus does not exist, he can't save you. Ugh, yikes. Number three is that because hipster Jesus is not real and cannot save you, following him will lead to death and destruction to hell. So that's not good. So number one, hipster Jesus isn't real. actually this is basically all we're going to cover because number two and number three really fall under number one. So hipster Jesus is not real. He cannot save you and thus he will lead you into the pit of hell.

This live and let live love is love. Jesus do whatever you want. Jesus I exist to make you happy Jesus. Doesn't care about sin. Jesus is not real. Here's the Jesus of the Bible. Revelation describes him as riding through the clouds on a white horse with a tattoo on his thigh and a sword coming out of his mouth.

Like, what? What? Does that not terrify you? Like, is that the guy that you want to, like, sit down and have a beer with? No, like, that's the kind of king that you want to worship. He is the defeater of sin and death. He is the annihilator of Satan. He is our rescuer.

He is our strong defense. He is our warrior. He is our king, our leader. He is holier than we could ever imagine. And yes, for Christians, the amazing thing is because God is merciful and gracious, not because we are, like, fun people to hang out with. he is our friends. He is our great high priest. And Hebrews 4 says that he's a great high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. Hebrews 414 through 16 says, for we do not have a high priest who is

unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet is without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace in time of need. That is the Jesus that saves you, who willingly, sacrificed himself on your behalf that you might be reconciled to God. Jesus is not your boyfriend. Okay? Jesus is not your gal-pal. He is not your mascot.

He is not your political prop. He is a judge. He is someone to be feared. He will strike terror into the hearts of men and women when he returns. And one day, every knee will bow in every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is a force to be reckoned with. the government will sit upon his shoulders and his kingdom will have no end does that sound like the guy that you just want to like braid hair with no that that sounds like the leader you want to follow

that sounds like the king that you want to give your life to that sounds like the kind of god that you want to submit and surrender everything to that doesn't sound like a gal pal that doesn't sound like hipster live let live jesus we have this crazy idea that God of the Old Testament, that he cared about sin, but Jesus came so that God doesn't care about sin anymore. No, Jesus came because God cares about sin. Like, do you understand how much God has to care about sin to willingly sacrifice its only son to die a brutal, gruesome death on a cross to pay for it? Like, do you realize how seriously God takes sin in order that he has to shed the blood of Jesus in order to pay for? And so, you know,

for it. That's really, really serious. This crazy idea that we have, Jesus is the eradication of the carrying about sin from God is crazy. Like you do realize that Jesus has been with God since the beginning, that he is God. They are three and one. We won't get into the doctrine of the Trinity right now. But people try to separate Jesus from God and say, okay, God might have been this cruel God in the Old Testament. He might have been a God of wrath. But Jesus, he's just the soft guy that says, you know, I don't really care what you think. You can believe whatever you want to. No, he is one with the father. He is the personification of God. He is fully man, fully God. Like I said, a force to be reckoned with. He is not this guy who just acquiesced God in the sense that God

no longer cares about sin. He satisfied God's wrath through the shedding of his blood. But that doesn't mean that God doesn't care about sin anymore. It means because he is gracious, because he is merciful because he is faithful, he satisfied his wrath on his son. And we who believe in him don't have to perish, but we will have eternal life. That is the gift that we have been given, not because we deserve it, but because God is incredibly gracious. So this idea that Jesus is just this cool dude that doesn't care about anything and it's just here to affirm you is not biblical. He actually said to die to yourself. Everything you think you are, every sinful inclination that you have in your heart, he says, crucify it. He said it's done.

He said, the old is past. The new has come. The old you is dead. The new you has risen up. It's not just a rebirth. It is a new birth. You are a new creation. Not just the old creation refurbished. You are a new person. Jesus said, whoever you were before, you're dead now. That's dead to you. C.S. Lewis sums this up really well. It's extremely biblical to Jesus's call for us to come and die. As CS Lewis sums it up like this in mere Christianity, give me all of you. I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money and so much of your work. I want you. I want all of you. I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it. No half measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and a

branch there. Rather, I want the whole tree out. Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me. Give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange, I will give you myself. My will shall become your will. My heart shall become your heart. People often forget this when they read verses like Psalm 374 that says, I will give you the desires of your heart or the Lord will give you the desires of your heart. They think, well, great. God just wants me to be happy. That means that if I want something bad enough that God's going to give me that, no, what happens when you surrender your life to Christ is that your desires become his desires, his desires become your desires,

much more importantly. And so your heart is transformed by the power of Christ where you no longer are pursuing the things of the flesh. You're no longer pursuing selfish ambition. Now, that doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that you don't have your own personality, that you don't have your own unique dreams and unique wants. But what it does mean is that everything that is natural about you is fully submitted to the will of Christ. That's what happens in that great and glorious exchange. Here's the deal.

Here's what people like Judah Smith, maybe intentionally, maybe not, but other people who follow that kind of teaching that, hey, dude, Jesus is just your friend. Like, he's just here to chill with you. He's not scary. Don't worry about him. Here's what they're trying to do, which I think is total blasphemy and totally unnecessary, is that they are trying to let Jesus off the hook. They're trying to make him smaller. They're trying to make him more appealing. They're trying to make him more bite-sized. They're trying to make him more chewable. They're trying to make him more attractive to our current culture, a current culture who says, well, if you judge me, then you don't love me.

If you tell me that something I do is wrong, then you are maligning my entire identity. You are maligning everything that I am. So you can't love me and also tell me something that I'm doing is wrong. And so they're trying to mold Jesus into the sinful desires and sinful inclinations of our generation by saying Jesus isn't here to judge you. Jesus just wants you to be you and to do you and to do whatever you want to. They're trying to make Jesus more appealing to our sinful minds, rather than molding our minds to the power and the goodness of who Jesus is.

And remember, the problem with making Jesus any smaller than he is, the problem with trying to fit Jesus into our current culture, the problem with trying to make Jesus relevant is that that culturally relevant hipster Jesus does not exist. and because he does not exist, he cannot save you. And because he cannot save you, he will lead you into the pit of hell. So reject the lie that Jesus is just here to make you happy because there's nowhere in the Bible that says that's true.

If you're looking for a mascot, I would look somewhere else. I've heard this said before. Why be a part of Christianity that doesn't align with the Bible? If it doesn't align with the Bible, then you should just get a new hobby. This isn't doing anything for you. This is not a saving faith if you believe in a Jesus that's not really there. You should do something that makes you feel better about yourself. You should do something that just makes you happy every hour of the day.

It's not Christianity. That's not what it's there for. It is for people who will come and die through the power of the Holy Spirit. So that's that's my entire take on the entire hipster Jesus thing. This is something I've thinking about and writing about hipster Jesus for a long time. He's not necessarily, like I said, liberal. It certainly is seen in the crowds of young women who maybe aren't political, but they just want so badly someone to tell them that they're pretty,

to someone to tell them that they're worthy, someone to tell them that they're good enough. And so they mold Jesus into this ever-affirming guy that will be their boyfriend when they don't have one. And look, the beautiful thing about God is that to him, you are beautiful, you are wonderfully made. You are because of Christ or in Christ, you are worthy. Without him, not so much.

In Christ, your slate is clean. In Christ, you are forgiven. In Christ, you do have a, identity. You do mean something. You do matter. You are created in his image. Whether you are a Christian or not, you're created in his image. That in of itself is amazing. But in Christ, you have a new identity. You have a new worth. Christ has reached all of the goals, all of the standards that you could never reach. He did it on your behalf. So all of the perfection that you are trying to strive to, Jesus already did it for you. He won all of the victories that you could never win. He is sufficient

because you are insufficient. He is strong because you are weak. And that is the beauty and the confidence and the assurance that we get in Christ, but it doesn't mean that you always are, that you're always affirmed in everything you want, that you're given all of your selfish and fleshly desires. Absolutely not. That's just not what Christianity is. Okay. Now we are going to do a little Q&A for a little bit because you guys sent me a lot of questions last week that I didn't get to. So I just want to make sure that we get to those. Do I think the RB, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is alive?

I, you know, that's a good question. I haven't heard from her in a really long time. If I heard anything about her, you know, she was in the hospital. She's like 85 or something like that. I mean, what a fighter. And I am hoping that she makes a swift recovery. unfortunately you got a lot of people so consumed by politics that they hope that she kills over because she's old so President Trump can get another conservative justice in.

I'm just not for that. Like she is a woman with a family with a life with a legacy who has worked really hard. And I disagree with her on a lot of things, particularly when it comes to gender. But I hope that she recovers. I mean, she's like an amazing woman who still works out every day. And I hope that she can make a strong comeback. and gosh, it craziness, craziness. I hope that she is alive, though,

and I think that she is. Why do you think our culture is leaning away from believing in absolute truths? Gosh, there are so many theories about this and so many things that you could look at. But certainly, I don't think that it's a coincidence that as we are disbelieving in absolute truth, we are also disbelieving in God.

I mean, we're the least religious that we've ever been. millennials are the least religious generation that has ever existed. And this idea of postmodernism that you can't ever really know truth, that truth is absolutely unknowable, that you're never going to be able to find it. So you should just create, you should just create your own truth, my truth and your truth. You should be on the throne of your own universe. That's part of it as well.

That was alive in the post-World War I era. And it certainly got more popular in the past couple decades, particularly. through academia, this idea that you can determine what's right and wrong and there is no true arbiter of that. You are your own arbiter. Of course, no one believes that. Even the statement, I do not believe in absolute truth is in and of itself an absolute truth because you're saying that people who do believe in absolute truth is wrong, but how can you say that something is wrong if right and wrong don't exist? And so the people who don't believe in absolute truth are very confused because everyone believes in absolute truth. It's just a matter of where you believe

truth comes from. I don't see any other logical way to come about truth than from a transcendent truth giver. Because if you are, if you and I are the arbiters of truth and we just have our subjective interpretations of what truth is, then who's to say my way is any better than yours? who's to say in a more dramatic way that Hitler's worldview is any better than Mother Teresa's. No, we're all operating under this transcendent unseen standard of what is right and wrong, even if we don't admit it. We all get mad when someone hits us. We all get mad when someone hits our car and doesn't leave a note. We all get mad when someone steals from us. Why? Why? Who told us that being hurt is wrong? Who told us that being stolen from is wrong?

Why do we believe those things are wrong? Because we're all operating under a transcendent moral standard. So the only logical thing to me is to say, well, if there's a transcendent moral standard, then there is a transcendent moral standard giver. This is a CS-Lewis mere Christianity argument. If you don't believe in a moral law giver, then you don't believe in a moral law. And everyone believes in a moral law. So I think it's just ignorance. Most people don't think about it that hard, quite honestly. So someone said, oh, they send me a message too. Christian thought trend, false religions, equal human-driven fantasy rather than lies from the enemy. So a lot of people say, okay, this is just a human-driven fantasy, this kind of false religion,

or even like the prosperity gospel and not a lie from Satan, we know that all false religions are from Satan. It's not, nothing is just human-driven. Ephesians 2 calls Satan the prince of the power of the air. And so he's in control of all of it, or he is in all of it. How to stand firm in your beliefs while working at a. liberal university. I think it's really difficult. I always tell people to pick their battles, though, and to, and to be discerning, to be discerning about the things that you speak up about

and the things that you don't speak up about. It's not worth picking a fight every single time someone brings up politics. Now, maybe if they're talking about abortion and you hear them spreading misinformation, you might want to stand up and say, well, actually, that's not really true. But what I've actually found in the power of changing minds is that you ask questions. Why do you believe that? How do you know that? How do you know that's true? What do you think that's going to do? Not in an antagonizing way, but in an honestly curious way. And it gets them to think about why they believe what they believe because what I found is that a lot of liberals have no idea why they believe what they believe. Not all of them, but especially a lot of young liberals,

they just simply have not thought about that. They just haven't thought about why they believe what they believe. So the better tactic might be asking questions rather than always being on the A lot of you asked about healthcare, and I'll try to do an entire episode on that and single-payer healthcare and why it's stupid. Someone said, would you ever do a meet up in Dallas? Maybe. I don't know. I would love to meet you guys. I also, I just get nervous because there's a lot of, like, scary people out there.

Not the people who listen to this podcast, because you guys are my true fans and awesome people. But there are some creepers out there. And so I do get worried about that. I'd have to get security and all of that. and that just takes a lot of, a lot of stuff. Does pineapple go on pizza? No, it doesn't. It doesn't.

Ranch goes on pizza. Sausage goes on pizza. Pepperoni's go on pizza. There's a lot that can go on pizza. Like, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to what you can put on pizza. But anything sweet? No, no, no, no, no. Okay, so someone says, many people slam her life.

You only care until the baby is gay. slash transgender slash et cetera. I don't know if I've heard that argument. I'm sure it's out there. Like I totally believe that that argument is out there. I have heard the argument that you only care about the baby until it's born and then you think that it should be out on the street. What they're trying to say is that because you don't believe in unlimited welfare,

because you don't believe in entitlements, because you don't believe in free college, then you don't care about people. So they are conflating, they're conflating government. help, unlimited, unconditional government help with empathy. And that's just not true. Statistics show that red states give a lot more to charity than blue states do. It also shows that religious people give a lot more to charity than non-religious people do. And religious people tend to be more conservative. And so people who believe in smaller government are not any less empathetic and even sometimes are more empathetic than people who believe in large government

because we believe it's our responsibility to take care of the poor. We believe it's our responsibility to take care of the least of these, not the government. And we believe the government does a really bad job. Why? Not only because they're inefficient, just look at the VA, but also because they cannot help someone without allowing them to be free. Or they cannot help someone and allow them to be free at the same time. You are bound some way to the government. The more we give to the government, the more the government grows. The less liberty we have. And of course, the more liberty, the better. The more entrepreneurial spirit, the better. And so that's just a stupid argument.

They're conflating empathy and compassion with government handouts. And I haven't seen any statistics that show that that actually helps people long term. Now, you only care about the baby until it's gay, transgender. That's just stupid. Again, you're conflating, caring about someone with agreeing with everything they do with their life. They just have a very cheap view of love. their view of love is giving someone every single thing they want and you're not allowed to disagree with them.

And I, that's just absolutely wrong. Someone says the issues with big church pastors preaching false doctrine and what we should do about it. So I don't know if I would say it's big church pastors. I don't think the size of your church necessarily dictates how sound you are in your teaching. Now, a lot of times we do see megachurch as like Lakewood. Joel Osteen, Elevation Church, New Spring. We see a lot of those churches preaching.

I'm not even saying that all of those people are necessarily false teachers. I would need to look more into some of them that I just listed to know whether or not they are. But they often teach just a not true, not biblical, not biblically sound message, some of them. And they are seeker-friendly churches. And so they want a lot of people to come to their churches. And so they make their, uh, they make their sermons more like motivational talks. They make them more appealing and culturally relevant and attractive and funny and forsake the hard truth about the gospel and the hard truths that the Bible brings. And I think what you do about it in your own life is you just make sure that you are going to a church that preaches the gospel. There will always be false

teachers. The Bible makes that very clear. They will, they will satisfy itching ears. And there were always people that listen to false teachers, but you don't have to. You are responsible for your own life. And if you are the husband, you are responsible for your family and what they listen to and the church that they are going to. And that's really all you can worry about. And of course, I call these people out on podcasts and try to do it in a lovingly truthful way. But now, trolling them on social media. It has its purposes, but maybe it shouldn't be the primary tool that you use to call them out. But I hope that helps. You're really just responsible to, to your family and to being obedient to God in that realm. So thank you guys so much for listening. I hope that you have a

great weekend and we will be back here on Tuesday.